Comparison of the Immulok cultureset kit and virus isolation for detection of herpes simplex virus in clinical specimens

Abstract

The Immulok test performed at 24 h after inoculation had a 73% sensitivity and 97.5% specificity for detecting herpes simplex virus in clinical specimens, as compared with viral culture in human embryonic lung fibroblasts. The test increased the proportion of positive specimens reportable at 24 h by 48% (P < 0.01) but failed to detect 4 of 31 (13%) specimens positive for cytopathic effect at 24 h and 13 of 32 (41%) specimens positive at-48 h after inoculation.

Physical and chemical methods for enhancing rapid detection of viruses and other agents.

“…HSV can also be rapidly detected in noncentrifuged cultures by immune staining (65,116,128,137,152,180,187,192,202,203,219,239,243,257,344). Most studies that use commercial immunoperoxidase staining kits and noncentrifuged cell cultures have found immunoperoxidase staining at <48 h to be less sensitive than conventional cultures for detecting HSV (65,116,128,239,243,257). The sensitivity for detecting HSV in noncentrifuged cultures by immune staining has been variable and has ranged from 48 to 100% (65,187,192,202,203,243).…”

Rapid and accurate viral diagnosis

“…8), numerous studies have not found them to be as sensitive as standard virus isolation. The sensitivity of the kits has ranged from 73 to 79% when compared with standard tissue culture (Fayram et al, 1983;Hayden et al, 1983;Rubin and Rogers, 1984;Sewell et al, 1984). However the problem may well lie in the kits' use of Vero cells which are fairly insensitive to HSV infection when compared with more widely used HDF or primary RK cells.…”

Viral isolation versus immune staining of infected cell cultures for the laboratory diagnosis of herpes simplex virus infections

“…However, it is important to note that conditions were not identical, because different specimens were used with each cell type. Comparative studies will therefore be necessary to determine whether Vero cells are acceptable as hosts for HSV detection, especially because several commercial kits come with this cell line and because differences in sensitivity have been reported (4,6,9,16,17,19). We were able to rapidly detect and report 66% (96 of 146) of the HSV-positive specimens within 24 h by a standard viral culture method.…”

“…Immunoperoxidase and peroxidase-antiperoxidase staining can be an effective means for rapidly identifying HSV antigens either in infected cell cultures or directly in clinical specimens (1,2,11,12,14,15,18). Recently, several commercial HSV detection kits involving immunoperoxidase staining have been evaluated with various degrees of success (4,6,9,16,17,19). In the present report, we document our experience for detecting HSV in 458 clinical specimens by either conventional cell culture isolation or immunoperoxidase staining after viral amplification in culture.…”